How the telephone messes up nice Victorian rules of etiquette

A telephone call is spontaneous: there is no advance notice of a call coming through.  The most you can do is forewarn the servants (who act as a buffer) and hope they don't forget.  An exception could be when you write to say that you will phone at a particular time.  Thomas Hardy wrote to Lady St Helier in 1917, proposing "to ring you up on the telephone Wednesday morning to ask when we can call."  Imagine the chaos today if we wrote to everyone first, announcing our intention to telephone them at a set time!

The visiting card represents its owner, the visitor.  (Remember, you can't leave a card on behalf of another person who is out of town.)  What represents the 'caller' when he telephones?  In this respect, he is an unannounced visitor who contravenes social rules.  Note also the slippage in meaning of the word 'caller': he is no longer a tangible presence in the house who sits opposite the hostess, but a disembodied voice heard coming from a handset.  Implications for perceptions of the time-space relationship?

The rules for visiting are formal.  Those who adhere to them are seen as upstanding members of polite society.  What does it say about a person who bypasses these rules, engaging in innovations and uses a telephone?


The telephone's initial role was one of a business tool.  Even when found in homes of the well-to-do, it was for the purpose of the householder/factory owner/businessman in communicating with his place of business.  In this context, can we assume that the telephone has no place in polite society when ladies called on each other?  Gentlemen rarely made such social visits, i.e. making morning calls.


A telephone call is (or at least, could be):
* uninvited
* unexpected
* unannounced
From a hostess's viewpoints, these are vulgar traits for a visitor.

Phones in the hallway

Visiting cards had to be deposited in a silver tray to be found on a hall table.  They should never be handed directly to a servant nor to his mistress.

I find it amusing that Every Woman's Encyclopaedia advises its readers to place the telephone in the hall, even though the hall may be small and anyyone in the household can overhear phone conversations.

Visiting cards and telephone calls could be described as "invasions" or incursions into the private life of the family.  They are unsolicited requests from friends/acquaintances to gain access to the inner sanctum of the family.  

The hall could be seen as a half-way house between the public and private spheres of society.  In the geography of the house, the hall is removed from the public gaze and any visitors/phone call that land in this 'prothalamos,' or ante-chamber, await further acceptance or rejection, screened from public view and unable to proceed further in the house's internal space.


For a long time, the phone's place in the family home has been the hall table.  A ringing phone summons someone from the depths of the house.  Phone calls have to be made in the (usually) dimly lit, unheated hall, which is a thoroughfare for everyone else to pass through.  This is a public, shared area: it doesn't 'belong' to any one individual.  There is no privacy or intimacy in using the telephone.


With the coming of cordless phones and extensions, the telephone handset could migrate further and become part of living room or bedroom furniture.

Established rules of etiquette

There were certain situations where you just knew that you could expect a visit one day soon.  An acquaintance has come to town and the rules dictate that they must pay you a visit.

If visiting cards are left for you by your visitor, you can decide whether you want to be "at home" or not.  A modern equivalent might be screening all incoming phone calls with 'caller ID' and then deciding whether to answer or not.  Or perhaps refusing to answer the front door, pretending that you're not at home.

Calling hours were specific (3.00pm-6.00pm: perversely called 'morning calls' but only because they take place before dinner).  Visits had to be repaid within a set time limit.

No cards should be sent by post - the height of vulgarity!

Servants must differentiate between:
* a card left after a visitor leaves
* a card left and the caller enquires if the mistress is at home


Purpose of calling cards: to get round the tiresome problem of servants with amnesia.


Semantics: when a card is left with a turned-down corner, this means the visitor will call on the mother and her daughters together.


Duration of visit: never to exceed 15 minutes.


Embarrassment: what do you do if another visitor calls while you are visiting.  Stay, leave, talk, be silent?


Cards are also left at a family's house when an acquaintance dies.


A married lady would also leave her husband's visiting card together with hers - unless he was out of town (if, say, he were a naval officer serving overseas).  Your card is your proxy.  It is the rule that wives do the card-leaving for their husbands.  Married men rarely call in person!

After a visit, the calling card is left on the hall table.  It is never handed direct to a servant or the hostess.

The style and content of the visiting card must be fixed and simple - no ornate curlicues or fonts or elaborate use of titles.

The Girls' Own Paper, 1880.  Vol. I
Manners and rules of good society, or solecisms to be avoided.  London: Frederick Warne, 1916.
Routledge's Manual of Etiquette.
Every Woman's Encyclopaedia.  Vol. VI